In many computing systems that are intended to provide backup services, there is a need to verify that the data actually exists and is actually backed up. This can be difficult in conventional backup systems for various reasons.
For example, the data verification process in backup systems that also de-duplicate the data is complicated. Because files are often broken down into blocks or segments, the process of verifying the files may result in checking the same blocks or segments multiple times because the same data block or segment may be associated with multiple files. This wastes time and consumes computing resources. In addition, verifying the integrity of a file may result in random disk access reads because the file may not be stored contiguously on the storage device.
File verification is a process that that is regularly performed in order to ensure that the files stored in the backup systems are consistent and whole. However, conventional approaches to file verification suffer from random lookups, which slow down the verification performance, and from repeated and unnecessary segment verifications. Systems and methods are needed to improve the performance of the verification process.